Africa’s first officially branded geocaching tour will be launched in the Western Cape by Wesgro, the official Desitnation Marketing, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency for the Western Cape.

Geocaching is a virtual treasure hunt where participants use a GPS or smart device to hide and seek containers called geocaches.

“Geocaching is being used more and more to promote destinations around the world, with tour operators designing geotour packages to grow their businesses,” said Nils Flaatten, CEO of Wesgro. “Geotours have the potential to draw in a large number of international and local tourists, encouraging them to explore the Western Cape’s different regions,” he continued.

Flaatten said the geotour would be developed in partnership with official geocache site, geocaching.com, and marketed through newsletters, social media channels and blogs to a community of more than five million registered geocachers across the globe.

He said 16 caches would be hidden in different locations in Cape Town, the Winelands, the Karoo, West Coast, Cape Overberg, the Garden Route and the Klein Karoo. Flaatten added that specially-designed platinum, gold and silver geocoins would be awarded to geocachers who find a certain number of caches in the province. 

 “The caches could be on beaches, in caves, under waterfalls or in a vineyard,” he said. “We hope that we will offer tourists even more fun and curiosity and perhaps get them to visit a special destination they might have otherwise missed out on,” concluded Flaatten.